Hurricanes and Bruins duel in game two tonight at PNC Arena

Tonight, the Carolina Hurricanes will look to defend their home ice at PNC Arena once again. After emerging victorious in game one by a score of 5-1, this will be the second game at PNC Arena before the series shifts to Beantown and TD Garden. Carolina will be looking to ensure that they maintain the series lead heading to Boston. However, this is the playoffs and nothing is a given.

Carolina did not start game one well. Being sluggish out of the gates meant that the Bruins spent a lot of the game dictating the play in the first period. Of course, the Carolina Hurricanes grew into the game and as the series got older, the Canes got better, but that sluggish start could have been punished if not for the heroics of one Antti Raanta in his first-ever playoff start.

Traffic in front of the net also led to the Canes collecting most of their goals, and that’s going to have to be how they score in this series. Carolina isn’t loaded with 50 goal-scoring talents, so they will have to get bodies in front of the Boston netminder and just try to tip the puck or take his eyes away so he cannot trace the shot. It’s not going to be an easy task by any small margin, but the Canes will need to do that to win this series.

What we know for tonight’s game at the time of writing is that the Boston Bruins are going to ride with Linus Ullmark yet again. We know that he was not the reason the Bruins were unable to defeat the Hurricanes in round one. It’s going to be up to Carolina to continue putting the puck past him. Carolina’s forwards need to keep forcing him to swipe the puck out of his net. They cannot let the scoring dry up.